On your question in this brief: "How can we develop comprehensive strategies and tools to counteract the harmful effects of AI-driven disinformation and protect the integrity of information in an increasingly interconnected world?".
1. First off, there was never any assurance of integrity of information anytime in history, given how power has been wielded by monarchs, despots, etc, pre-democracy. Power decided what is truth and not until a new power vanquished the old. By the time we came along to democracy and liberal democracy, there is the expectation of truth production that has sanction (Sophia Rosenfeld), and we kind expect that truth trumps everything. So we have to start with power, political power in particular and with our own democratic and anti-democratic agency to add to or disrupt disinformation power.
2. For comprehensiveness of strategies, we need to decompose the problem into different segments where independent agency and incentives are play.
a) Disinformation producers - like politicians, culture warriors and even cavalier journalists.
b) Distributors - social media, search, news aggregator apps, news media (amplifiers, legitimizes, key nodes).
c) We the people-participants - our behavior and responses to information overload.
On the disinformation producers: My claim is that it is not information disorder at work, but a kind of cultural disorder, one where powerful actors do not want democratic culture to take further hold/expand, because they lose power and relevance in those contexts. For these folks generative AI is a force multiplier like nothing else.
Separate from the actors are two other factors:
1. Narratives, (facts and values) - the pathways along with stories are told (Bryan Stevenson's metaphor). These connect producers to people in participative ways.
2. Business models: specific business models at the distributors end actually make it hard to tackle the problems.
We have to imagine a suite of strategies located at different part of this chain, upstream, midstream and downstream and use democratic culture as a long-term anchor.
On your question in this brief: "How can we develop comprehensive strategies and tools to counteract the harmful effects of AI-driven disinformation and protect the integrity of information in an increasingly interconnected world?".
1. First off, there was never any assurance of integrity of information anytime in history, given how power has been wielded by monarchs, despots, etc, pre-democracy. Power decided what is truth and not until a new power vanquished the old. By the time we came along to democracy and liberal democracy, there is the expectation of truth production that has sanction (Sophia Rosenfeld), and we kind expect that truth trumps everything. So we have to start with power, political power in particular and with our own democratic and anti-democratic agency to add to or disrupt disinformation power.
2. For comprehensiveness of strategies, we need to decompose the problem into different segments where independent agency and incentives are play.
a) Disinformation producers - like politicians, culture warriors and even cavalier journalists.
b) Distributors - social media, search, news aggregator apps, news media (amplifiers, legitimizes, key nodes).
c) We the people-participants - our behavior and responses to information overload.
On the disinformation producers: My claim is that it is not information disorder at work, but a kind of cultural disorder, one where powerful actors do not want democratic culture to take further hold/expand, because they lose power and relevance in those contexts. For these folks generative AI is a force multiplier like nothing else.
Separate from the actors are two other factors:
1. Narratives, (facts and values) - the pathways along with stories are told (Bryan Stevenson's metaphor). These connect producers to people in participative ways.
2. Business models: specific business models at the distributors end actually make it hard to tackle the problems.
We have to imagine a suite of strategies located at different part of this chain, upstream, midstream and downstream and use democratic culture as a long-term anchor.